


The Tourist’s Guide to Afterlife Dating

by RookSacrifice



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Kaiba stays in the afterlife, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Pridecember 2020, Prideshipping, Romance, Smut, Some angst, as a treat, post-dsod
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RookSacrifice/pseuds/RookSacrifice
Summary: What do you do after bending the laws of the space-time continuum and nearly severing the fragile threads that hold together the fabric of reality to duel your long-dead ancient pharaoh card game rival in the afterlife of a religion you don’t believe in? Date him while you’re trapped there, obviously.A series of vignettes from Kaiba and Atem’s complicated courtship Post-DSOD. Table of Contents within.Prompt: Carry - Petit MortAtem falls asleep after an arduous day of pharaonic duties.[Rating: T, fluff, established relationship, implied sexual content]
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi
Comments: 53
Kudos: 62





	1. Table of Contents

The premise for this one shot collection is, aside from meeting the prompts, all are meant to take place as vignettes in the same 'universe' and are set while Kaiba travels to the afterlife post-DSOD (inevitably stranding himself there for an unknown length of time). They are written in no particular chronological order, but are instead stand-alone snapshots over the course of their evolving relationship. 

** Table of Contents **

  1. [coffee] [Chariots of the Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68102005)  


When Kaiba has trouble sleeping, he pays a visit to Atem in the early hours of the morning.  
[Rating: G, fluff, pre-relationship]

  2. [desire] [Oral Fixation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68186218)  


The four times Kaiba and Atem thought about kissing and the last--well, you know the rest.  
[Rating: T, mutual pining]

  3. [hot cocoa] [In Vino Veritas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68280343)  
  
In which Kaiba and Atem share mulled wine over a deteriorating game of senet.  
[Rating: T, mutual pining, angst, pre-relationship]  
  

  4. [flowers] [A Crown of Thorns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68399749)  
  
Kaiba is severely injured in his crash landing and is treated by the palace medicine men.  
[Rating: T, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, cw: drugs in a medicinal context]  
  

  5. [shower] [Still Falls the Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68509673)  


Atem flees the palace before a storm and Kaiba takes chase.  
[Rating: M, light angst, some smut as a treat, established relationship]

  6. [scarf] [Soak Up the Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/68614461)  
  
Atem helps Kaiba thwart his sunburn problem.  
[Rating: G, fluff]  
  

  7. [carry] [Petit Mort](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27817369/chapters/69207180)  
  
Atem falls asleep after an arduous day of pharaonic duties.  
[Rating: T, fluff, established relationship, implied sexual content]  
  

  8. [letter]
  9. [animals]
  10. [blankets]
  11. [plant]
  12. [chest]
  13. [new car]
  14. [slow]
  15. [glasses]
  16. [throne]
  17. [movie night]
  18. [bite]
  19. [possessive]
  20. [chess]




	2. Chariots of the Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kaiba has trouble sleeping, he pays a visit to Atem in the early hours of the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Coffee

If Atem were remembered for any habits in life by the attendants who served him still, it would have been his penchant for late nights and far later mornings. For a purported god-king and son of the sun himself, he wasn’t known for his timely and reliable risings. Although, some lenience ought to be in order for an immortal man in the afterlife, destined to while away eternity locked in the body of his sixteen-year-old self. Some habits, he insisted, he shouldn’t be expected to outgrow.

This morning was different.

Atem woke with a start in the stillness of the early witching hours, clawing at the sheets he’d tangled himself in during his shallow and restless sleep. His tousled hair was out of shape and clung to the sweat on his brow, his naked body sticky with the lingering dampness of anxiety as he stared into the nothingness of the empty room. He swallowed the dryness in his mouth, dreamlike realities still nipping at the corners of his perception and promising the maze might close around him at any moment.

He forced himself out of bed, almost tripping on ankles caught in constricting linens along the way, the clutches of his own bedsheets driving his heart to beat right out of his chest. He fumbled to light an oil lamp by touch alone, breathing a sigh of relief with the small beacon warmed to life in his hands. Some fears he couldn’t be expected to outgrow.

Atem had no desire to fall back to sleep now. He contemplated calling the servants but when he drew back the heavy curtains and saw the sun tucked away beneath the horizon and only the faint lightening of dawn beyond the walls, he decided against it. He could prepare for the morning on his own. He slipped into a light cotton shendyt and left a blanket draped over his shoulders to stave off the chill of the dewy, pre-dawn air. He yawned, making his way to the antechamber to scrounge around the sideboard for the ceramic cups and water jug and sacks of beans the attendants stored in the cupboards. He picked one that was woefully reminiscent of the smell of chocolate that he missed from his days with Yuugi and he absently wondered if the exotic caravans from Punt ever found such things between their journeys near and far.

The palace staff would be beside themselves to know the pharaoh was preparing his own morning coffee, a ritual they found peculiar to begin with, but Atem appreciated stealing these precious few moments of personal independence when he could. Some of the perks of paradise grew tiresome in their own right after a while. He balanced the ceramic cup full of plump green beans over the lamp on the low table on the floor, flopping back on his sea of fluffy cushions while he allowed them time to roast. The delightful aroma wafted on the air and Atem’s faced flushed and a tug tightened in his chest. He closed his eyes. The smell of coffee always reminded him of Kaiba…

When the roast took on a warm, toasted brown, Atem struggled to grind the beans to a fine powder with the backend of a spoon. He couldn’t find the servants’ pestle in the cabinet. Good enough. By the time he finished, the water was warming over the lamp and he plopped the brown bits into the jug, pushing them submerged with his finger and hissing at the sting from the heat. He struggled to be patient while he waited on the brewing.

Atem heard a soft shuffling on the other side of his door, quiet enough he would have missed it had he not been lying down, focused on the sound of his own breathing. He smiled. There was only one courtier in the palace who would be restless long before dawn. Atem padded over silently on the balls of his feet, not giving himself away until he flung the door open and the loitering guest nearly spilled over the threshold in surprise.

“Hello there,” Atem chuckled watching Kaiba stumble into the room with a sour look on his face.

“You’re never up this early,” Kaiba had a peculiar way of making statements that were actually questions, his habit of feigning disinterest in a way that never fooled Atem.

“Then why were you here?” He leveled back. Kaiba didn’t answer, but Atem caught a look peeking out from under his brown bangs that suggested he hadn’t slept well either. “I have your favorite… If you’ll indulge me.”

Kaiba looked past him to the porcelain cups on the low table, the thin swirls of steam rising up to the air and gave a snort of affirmation. He wasn’t the sort for pomp and circumstance and didn’t bother to kneel down at the table while Atem poured two tiny cups more akin to espresso shots. Kaiba mouthed the word _thanks_ but no sound left his lips.

“Let’s go outside,” Atem offered. “It will be daylight soon.”

There were of course several opulent seating arrangements available on the pharaoh’s private terrace, but Atem strode past all of them. He opted instead to torment an old white vine of columbine twined around a trellis perched against the east facing wall. He tugged on it to estimate its sturdiness before slipping bare feet between the wooden rungs. He stopped short in thought for a moment before turning to Kaiba.

“Hold this,” He handed him his small cup and blanket and started to climb.

“This is ridiculous…” Kaiba groused, but he stood by patiently until the pharaoh made it to the roof and poked his stubby arms out over the clay tiles to grab his coffee and Kaiba’s too.

“You can’t see the horizon over the walls from the terrace,” Atem said but Kaiba was already following him up to the perch anyhow. “I want to watch the sunrise.”

“It wouldn’t be so special if you didn’t sleep until noo—"

“ _Shh!”_ He cut him off, drawing his knees to his chest to stay warm in the morning air and gazing out over the view of the river valley stirring to life. “You can hear the wild geese calling.”

“As opposed to some domestic variety?” Kaiba settled his large and awkward frame down beside him, trading Atem his blanket for his small cup of coffee. He took a tentative sip, grimacing at bit at the unpleasant bitter notes. “You know, I have a full staff too but at least I can make my own cup of coffee…”

“With a machine. It’s different.”

“Should I design you a drip coffee maker while I’m here? Even you couldn’t ruin it with that.”

“If you insist on complaining about my generosity and technique then yes.”

Kaiba chuckled but he was drinking the offering anyway. A contented silence fell between them for a moment while they watched a fluttering flock of egrets rise up from the riverbank, silhouetted against the pink sky. Kaiba yawned and it was Atem who spoke up first.

“If you could have been born anyone, what would you want to be?”

“That sounds like the same kind of tacky bull they ask me in magazine interviews,” Kaiba groaned.

“Well here you can be honest,” Atem said.

“I was never _dishonest,”_ Kaiba shifted, trying to stretch out his long legs and letting his feet dangle over the edge of the shingles, knocking one free and listening to it shatter on the patio. Atem chuckled. “Fine. Whatever. Obviously, you have an answer so go ahead and spit it out.”

“I’d like to have been a farmer,” He nodded solemnly to himself, taking a sip of his coffee and wrapping his hands around the cup. “Adopted a son, taught him to plow the land…”

Kaiba’s cheeks burned red at the words _adopted a son_ but his face returned to its unreadable composure almost immediately. He mulled it over for a moment and laughed, snatching Atem’s fingers from around the cup.

“Pharaoh, these hands couldn’t plow anything,” He snickered, running his thumb over the spot where callouses would have been if he had any.

“T-That’s hardly the point!” Atem sat frozen when Kaiba’s touch lingered longer than expected.

“Then what is the point?” He let go, and Atem tried not to let his breath out too sharply.

“To live simply.”

“You don’t even know what that word means…” Kaiba scoffed.

“Like you do?” Atem teased back.

Kaiba’s face grew a bit more somber and he clammed up on himself, worrying his finger against the lip of his empty cup. Atem realized he’d been a bit presumptuous, but he knew better than to apologize.

“Right…” He said. The sun was coming up over the river now, turning the wandering trail of water to glistening liquid gold.

“Try again,” Kaiba said. Atem let out a stiff breath and didn’t give his answer right away.

“I would like to know I left this wicked winter a couple acres greener, now that I’m gone…”

The rooftop was warming now in the morning sun and the shadows pulled back from the expanse of wheat fields in the valley, tiny figures looking like ants awake and milling between the rows of stalks.

“There’s more than one way to plow a field,” Kaiba said and Atem could help thinking that maybe he was talking about himself. He hummed in agreement and they continued to watch the morning unfold in the distance.

“Your turn,” Atem nudged with his elbow, and Kaiba let out another frustrated sigh.

“I’ve never really cared about the past tense, all that worrying about what might have been.”

“Play along with me,” Atem smiled, letting the blanket fall off his shoulders to warm his skin in the morning sun.

“I would have been myself,” Kaiba said.

“That’s cheating…”

“No, it isn’t. Why would I want to be someone else?”

“I suppose…” Atem nodded to himself.

The sun was full force now, beating down on the roof and making the tiles warm to the touch. They wouldn’t be able to sit up there for much longer. Kaiba pushed up the sleeves of his black turtleneck and laid back against the roof, closing his eyes and looking about as peaceful as he ever could.

“You can change your answer, Pharaoh, but you won’t change me.”


	3. Oral Fixation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The four times Kaiba and Atem thought about kissing and the last--well, you know the rest.  
> [Rating: T, mutual pining]

So Kaiba finds the pharaoh perched in a haggard old pomegranate tree wearing nothing but a shendyt. He thinks he’s got a hell of a view or something, all three and a half feet off the ground, parked between a dead branch and a lean green one with dirty toes pressed up in the bark. He looks like Mahaad had him sit for a bloodletting, sanguine tears weeping down his forearms and over his thighs while he pries at the heart of the fat red fruit. He’s torn the thing in half, and he means _torn,_ with ragged edges like tattered junk mail. His grubby little paws are fishing in the guts, port-wine stains up over his wrists, but he’s careful picking out the plump seeds. Careful not to pop their juicy stomachs before they make it past his lips.

He’s made a mess of things there, too, fingerpainted his chin to look like barfight bruises without the swollen jaw line and Kaiba watches him kick the seeds around between his teeth before fluting them out through the hollow of a u-turn tongue. He finally notices his audience and the fruit pulp stuck in his gums matches the color of his eyes when he smiles. He offers Kaiba the other two chambers of the heart, aorta still bleeding sugar nectar on his fingers.

“I don’t like being sticky…”

Atem shrugs and keeps it for himself. His mouth makes smacking sounds when he slurps up the ruby gloss and a few forgotten beads dribble down his chin while greedy digits dig out more.

Kaiba watches and licks his lips.

* * *

When Atem wanders in on the fat stacks of the library he isn’t even looking for Kaiba. He’s looking for Mahaad.

And maybe he catches him from the corner of one steely eye but he doesn’t tip. Not this bird. He pecks at where his scalp meets his hairline in a way that reminds him of the women plucking out cotton gum by the river bank and he keeps his mouth shut cause he knows you don’t throw stones at the kingfishers.

They might not be birds at all.

He’s got a piece of reed hounded down to a point but he doesn’t know where to stick it. His hand lingers on the papyrus while his mind’s caught in a quagmire and the black ink feathers out undirected to conquer the page.

He cusses, the sort of verbiage Yuugi never let Jou use around Grandpa, and now he’s all ruffled and a flock of pages flurry on the floor. He’s not sure what he’s scribbling on about but there’s a fine line between numbers and magic and even Kaiba doesn’t know when he’s crossed it.

Atem pilfers more from the stolen moment, tucked out of sight, and he starts from scratch on a empty canvas. He doesn’t get caught in the same trap twice. This time he doesn’t set the pen down to ruminate. He’s seized the butt of the thing between his molars and the stick pulls up a chapped lip to show teeth when he chews. It’s slippery and bite marked when he drags it out again for more chicken scratch.

Atem envies the river reeds.

* * *

The pharaoh thinks he has a pool.

He’s mistaken, of course. Kaiba has a pool, back in his Domino mansion: a poured concrete bowl, porcelain tiles, and well-defined edges that don’t mingle man and nature, where the water is clear glass and stinks of chlorine in the sun.

What he’s got is a pond: a man-made dime-store replica of an actual oasis. Kaiba concedes that it’s a pretty damned good one with its blossoming blue and white lotus population, seven-story palm trees, and remarkably crystal blue persuasion, but he squirms when the muddy clay squelches between his toes.

They’re wading, or they had been until Atem weaseled his way through the rushes, too short to be seen, and played at drowning him in the deep part. Now Kaiba’s steaming off his spite in the generous shade of seasoned sycamore trees. Atem has on a kind of dirty-beige—taupe maybe, whatever—frock with eggplant stitching but what gets him is the neck’s too big. He’s swimming in it. One shoulder’s paddled free and the tan on his bicep is mistuned to the tan on his chest by a half-step tone. There’s a skin tag on his top lip under the cupid’s bow where the plump rolls back into his mouth cause he chews it too hard when he thinks. His pearly fangs are lodged in it now, sometimes flicking free before his jaws clamp shut on it again. It’s stupid. There can’t be anything too quarrelsome on his mind on the quiet battlefield of an idle afternoon. Kaiba doesn’t wonder about it too hard until the pharaoh laughs at some private joke and his face scrunches up in a devious smirk.

He wants to wipe it off his face.

* * *

Kaiba doesn’t know the meaning of the word careful, and if he did he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

He’s split a lip—acting reckless, no doubt—but Atem wasn’t here when it happened. He’s here now, though it’s not like Kaiba would let anyone else help.

It’s a real sore lick, the kind Jou always dressed up in, but he isn’t going to say that. Could use a suture, too, but he’s got a stick up his ass about seeing the medicine men. Calls it a load of backwater superstition, that he won’t be having his arm sawed off over a paper cut. Atem’s over the arrogance and he spits in the wound just to watch it sting. He thumbs the cut a bit rougher than Kaiba deserves to pry the dirt out.

He had a cow about putting raw meat on his last cut, spouting off about bacterial infections and certain death, so Atem’s brought his highness an expensive salve instead, goose fat and juniper and reeking of turpentine. He’s all spun up and writhing over a whole lot of nothing and Atem tries to pin him down with a gruff hold on his dented sheet metal collarbone. The swelling is still wet with Atem’s saliva and the blood is already bubbling to the surface again when he loops his thumb through the lip, pulling it down to assess the damage.

“What, are you gonna kiss and make it better, mom?”

He takes a glob of balm between his fingers, binds the cobra with a grip on his sable hood, and roughs it on like he means to punish. Kaiba hisses, narrow eyes boiling, and he looks coiled to strike.

The lip is going to scar.

* * *

Atem has the pressures of courtiers to meet as if this paradise doesn’t orbit around his star so suppers are served at a long table. The company tweaks a raw nerve. The dining room in the mansion is a dust mite farm, but Kaiba isn’t so bent on getting the pharaoh bent that he skips. He winds up across from him like clock work, between the rock that never talks and the hard one that looks like Isis but isn’t _Isis._ Of course _Mahad_ ditches but he doesn’t comment because he’s pretending not to notice.

Some sultry golden girls buzz around with pitchers, the kind he hated at high class restaurants and hates now, brainless bees in a jar doling out date-wine that’s too sugary to stand but Atem has another gluttonous cup full. He chews while he runs his mouth because who’s going to tell him no, and Kaiba’s the only one at the table not eating with his bare hands.

He’s dissecting his honey-roasted pidgeon with all the wonder of a freshman biology class and plucks the liver out with his fingernails to swallow it in a single musky chomp. Atem moves on to the wing and separates the radius and ulna when he phages out the moist meat. He liposuctions off all the marbling and the bones come out stone smooth as a baby’s ass. Next is the cardiectomy. The heart squelches between his incisors on the way down. The rib cage pins the carcass on the plate and Kaiba chases his lentils around, watching him peel back what’s left of the greasy flesh to eat that too.

“I’m not that hungry tonight...”

He doubts Atem notices him leave, knocking his knees on the table he’s too tall for on the way out.

The breezeway he wanders off to is more chilly than he gives the desert credit for but it isn’t full of hot air. Kaiba stretches his aching back against a pillar and almost regrets not staying for the coffee.

“I know you prefer the fish, Seto, but yo—“

Kaiba swallows the sentence for him. He loses some audacity and almost pulls back, but once you start something its fatal not to go through with it. Atem melts against the pillar, lips slick with savory tallow but his tongue pairs well with the sweetness from the wine.

Kaiba eats until he’s had his fill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have a weird preoccupation with the little imperfections that might be off putting on other people but become endearing on someone we love.


	4. In Vino Veritas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kaiba and Atem share mulled wine over a deteriorating game of senet.  
> [Rating: T, mutual pining, angst, pre-relationship]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There is no such thing as chocolate in Ancient Egypt so I decided to get creative and substitute and alternative ~holiday beverage~ that’s more in keeping with the setting. Wine that’s been “mulled” is served warm and mixed with spices and fruits like raisins or dates.  
> PS – late cause I don’t know the meaning of “target word count”

Time crept on as it is wont to do and winter settled over the palace not long after Kaiba’s arrival. A mild one by his standards, but to the denizens of desert life today’s weather was an outlier from the ordinary. The air cooled just a touch below freezing and the dew froze over to paint the landscape with a thin gloss of white.

Kaiba spent a better part of the day enjoying the change of pace. He expected to find Atem fooling around in the gardens, marveling at how his roses turned to glass in the frost. But the pharaoh was never inclined to poke his nose out of his chambers to entertain the ‘snow’, opting instead to pretend the cold had never paid a visit at all.

Kaiba wasn’t opposed to spending days on his own. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have his own work cut out for him, even if he were hardly making passable progress when he sat down to it. The concept of a supply chain had yet to be dreamt of; there could be no ordering of replacement parts here to repair his vessel. He’d have to rebuild everything himself and he couldn’t afford any margin of error. The journey required perfect mathematical precision, lest his atoms be stripped clean quark by gluon until his body became oblivion in the vacuum between worlds.

At home, he’d had the finest engineers and instrumentation, breakthrough semiconductor technology and cutting-edge materials science, right at his fingertips and taken it for granted.

Here, he was equipped with his wits and bronze age metallurgy.  
Not even a slide rule.

Aaru made it easy to ignore such anxieties, cradling even Kaiba in a certain soothing air of security that whispered _there’s always tomorrow._ Tonight, he was uncharacteristically inclined to listen.

“Hail, _tjati.”_

Kaiba was accosted in the midst of his brooding reverie by one of the gaggle of palace servants. He’d nipped their address of _priest_ in the bud on day one, but they refused to call him ‘Master Kaiba’ or simply ‘Kaiba’ as his own staff had either. They’d reached a détente for the moment with the secular _vizier._

“What.” He wasn’t in the mood for their fawning attentions, he’d instructed his own staff to keep well enough alone and wasn’t sure why Atem didn’t see fit to do the same. He did always enjoy being surrounded by his… _attendants_. That’s all his loyal loser brigade were, in the end.

“Are you headed to see the pharaoh this evening?” She bowed, not looking him in the eye. A show a fear more so than respect. She held a clay pot in her hands with thick towels to keep from burning herself on the heat.

“I might be…” Kaiba had both considered it and not considered it. Far be it from him to beg for attention, but perhaps holing himself up all day was the _pharaoh’s_ way of begging for attention.

“Would you kindly bring this to his highness?” She reached the pot out. “He is…” In one of his notorious _moods,_ Kaiba could fill that in on his own. “This might lift his spirits.”

At first Kaiba suspected the prospect of company was really what she expected to cut through the fog, until he caught a familiar expression he recognized from Isono on nights he passed steaming bowls of ramen to Mokuba when he didn’t dare enter the study himself.

“Give it here,” He sighed, a clumsy exchange with the servant to catch the sloshing pot. It smelled sickly sweet, brewed to Atem’s tastes no doubt, but held the rich aroma of spices that even appealed to Kaiba.

The pot was heavy and by the time he reached the west wing of the palace his fingers were ready to fall off. He barged in without knocking first, a crime punishable by beheading, but the guards tended to look the other way for him. He was careful to set the pot on a towel so as not to ruin the intricate inlays and lacquers of Atem’s table with the heat. Atem’s fireplace was a blaze with tongues of flame licking free over the hearth.

“Ever heard of carbon monoxide poisoning?” Kaiba grumbled to himself, fumbling carefully with a precariously meltable copper poker to shepherd the fire back in its pen. “Try not to die a third time, that might be the charm…”

The pharaoh betrayed his whereabouts with a small chuckle from under the bedsheets, piled high with every wool blanket in the palace and he suddenly realized why his room was only allowed one. Kaiba ripped them off in one fell swoop, exposing him to the cold the way he did to Mokuba before school on Monday mornings.

“Don’t tell me you slept all day…”

“Kaiba!” Atem crawled under a pillow instead. “I am your pharaoh and I _command_ you to return my blankets to me!”

“Don’t cry ‘pharaoh’ with me. They’re on the floor. Your legs aren’t broken. Pick them up.”

“It is freezing in here!”

“No, it’s not. You have a fire going and all your fancy perfumes are perfectly liquid. If you’re _cold—_ not freezing—try putting a shirt on.”

“I didn’t call for you…” Atem protested. It wasn’t any wonder he was uncomfortable when he was half-nude as if it were the height of summer. Kaiba looked away while he dressed, busying himself with some terrifically fascinating trinket decorating the room. Watching made his face burn and his stomach twist, and he promised himself it was merely his unease with the shameless exhibitionism so common in antiquity. “You may show yourself out.”

“The servants made you mulled wine,” Kaiba inspected some lapis jewelry, intent on memorizing the intricacies of its craftsmanship. Perhaps he could find the artisan to assist with his repairs… He struggled not to think about Atem’s bare chest. “You can go back to being a self-indulgent slug all night or you can play me in senet, I don’t care.”

Of course Kaiba cared.

“Hmmm…” Atem hummed, he’d clearly made up his mind because he was dressed in one of his comically ballooned pairs of trousers and his habitual cape was replaced by the most inanely gaudy pelt of cheetah fur and Kaiba wondered which of the most beloved house pets had been so onerous it earned this fate instead of a proper burial. “A generous offer. I thought you hated senet. Is it because I always win?”

Atem was predictably wooed with the right temptations. He made himself a steaming cup of mulled wine and grabbed his favorite senet set before parking himself in dangerous range of the fire where the stone floor was hot to the touch.

“I don’t like non-combinatorial games,” Kaiba grabbed his own cup and took a long gulp to still the lingering flutters of his heartbeat. It was sweet, but the hearty spice mixture and alcohol made up for it. He sat across the board as far from the boiling fire as was feasible and hated how there was no convenient or comfortable way to fold his long legs.

“Then how can you stand duel monsters?” Atem aligned the small wooden pawns down one edge of the board. “Shuffling leaves nearly everything to chance.”

“The only reason you continue to beat me…” Kaiba gave up trying to sit cross legged in his robes and leaned over on his side. He’d long since had to surrender his one set of clothes he arrived in and still missed them sorely. There had been an uncomfortable air of finality that came with tucking them away in the trunk.

“It’s called _the heart of the cards,”_ Atem had the first move this time since Kaiba had the honors last round. It wasn’t so much an advantage as in chess since the first move was even more perfunctory.

“It’s _called_ luck.” Kaiba flipped his coins with a sigh, ending up with only one square to move. “And I’ve never been very lucky…”

He winced as it crossed his lips. He meant for the second half to fester in his inner monologue, but he let his guard down more and more frequently around the pharaoh and the words came bubbling unbidden to the surface. He already knew what well-meaning wisdom Yuugi would have:

_Don’t say that Kaiba-kun! Every roll is random, you never know what will come up next! What matters is to never stop playing._

Even Kaiba could appreciate the sentiment there, but he didn’t care for the way it tasted. But it wasn’t Yuugi sitting across the board. It was Atem, and Atem rarely said anything he expected to hear.

“I enjoy games with a bit of hidden information,” Of course he had an ideal roll and tactfully planted his little blockade where Kaiba would be hard pressed to move anywhere. “You can’t come prepared with memorized strategies and borrow someone else’s answers. It requires skill to think on your feet. Play the hand you’re dealt, as it were.”

“The hand you’re dealt, huh?” Kaiba flipped again. A three this time, much more workable.

“And make the most of it,” Atem didn’t play his next move right away, he simply watched Kaiba and finished his cup of wine.

It wasn’t so different from what he imagined Yuugi might say, but the subtleties were critical. They made the words easier to swallow and settle better in his stomach. Then again, that wasn’t so different from the mirror between Yuugi and Atem to begin with.

“Let’s make this game interesting,” Atem said with one of his habitual scheming smiles. “How about a bet?”

“No.”

“Are you admitting then that it’s your unavoidable destiny to lose to me at senet, now and always, and concede my ultimate and timeless title as king of game, singular?”

“ _No—”_

“Then you’ll make the bet?” Trapped, as always.

“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” Kaiba rolled his eyes. Atem had yet to play his second move and they were already half drunk on the floor.

“Good, I prefer a game of the highest stakes,” Atem wiggled his toes by the fire, suddenly looking away as if he were embarrassed. “The loser has to admit a secret. And it has to be a good one, no cheating. We both know your favorite color is blue that’s hardly a secret. You know what I mean.”

“Is this some game you played with your nerd herd?” Kaiba scoffed, but his chest swooped anyhow.

“Maybe,” Atem huffed and balled up with his chin on top his knees, keeping his eyes fixed on his toes which he seemed suddenly captivated by. “That doesn’t matter. I want to play.”

“We’ll play your dumb game, alright,” Kaiba conceded.

Atem had been acting melodramatic all day and was behaving awfully strange even now. He warmed up a few degrees and refocused his attention squarely on the board but was being weird about holding eye contact for longer than a split second. Kaiba assumed he’d had too much wine on an empty stomach.

They passed turn after turn in a tense silence, and Atem was less than his usual talkative self. Kaiba didn’t jump to fill the space. Atem had more than his fair share of anxious cups of wine and Kaiba followed, sipping becoming nothing more than an perfunctory gesture in the unnatural silence. For having never lost a game of senet between them, Atem was suspiciously off his game tonight. He made several inexcusable blunders and at first he was inclined to blame it on drunkenness (he was feeling a bit lightheaded himself) and yet…

If Kaiba didn’t know any better, he’d swear Atem was making every effort to throw the game.

He thought back on their earlier conversation, about luck and losses, and decided he wouldn’t be played the pitied fool even for Atem. He tried to throw the game out of sheer spite.

“You want to take that move back, Kaiba,” Atem teased.

“Mmmmm…” Kaiba feigned thoughtfulness. Poorly. “No, I don’t think so.”

Atem furrowed his brow in frustration, getting palpably antsy after a few more turns. He chewed his lip in effort to bite his tongue. He grumbled.

“Kaiba,” He pouted. “Just play the game for real…”

“You mean like you are?” He said sourly.

“I guess I’m just unlucky tonight…”

“A likely story.”

The game trailed out longer than any other they’d played, looping backwards until a few of the pieces reached their starting positions and the pot of wine was emptied. The pharaoh was practically beside himself with frustration and had abandoned all pretense of trying to win.

But if Kaiba was going to best the pharaoh at anything, how fitting that it should be losing. Atem exited his final pawn from the board with a sign of exasperation.

“ _Fine,_ Kaiba…” He scooped the little pieces back into their drawer. “You win. Lose. Whatever.

“What is it you want so terribly to say?” Atem whispered. He looked up with a face more vulnerable and unguarded than he’d seen it since the moment he first stepped into the throne room. The pharaoh leaned in to listen, cow eyed and expectant and… hopeful.

“I…” Kaiba started and his heart jumped into his throat, beating hard enough to send him into cardiac arrest.

What was it that we wanted so desperately to say? That he’d lose on purpose, just for the excuse? He hadn’t been thinking about it but he _knew,_ somewhere in his marrow, and it was just as it had been earlier when the walls of inhibition were lowered far enough that the words threatened to spill out undirected between them on the table, so close his lips were already curling around the sounds:

_I love you._

He caught himself, right on the first lick of the air and backpaddled in a fever.

“I… I think you’re better at duel monsters than me.” Fine. He’d never said that to Atem before, and sure they both knew it was true but saying it out loud is different… isn’t it?

Atem looked as though his heart had been hit by a bus and the light left his eyes two endless windows of hurt, blurring at the edges with salt water. Kaiba suddenly had the urge to vomit and his heart panged as if it were a labor not to stop. Is that what regret feels like?

“What is your obsession with living in tatters?” He whispered. Kaiba didn’t answer. Hardly a beat passed and Atem stood up, voice shaking when he spoke. “I’m tired. I think I’ve had too much to drink. I’m going back to bed…”

“Alright…” He said. Atem did or didn’t hear but it hardly mattered. Neither of them bothered to pick up the mess they’d made.

Kaiba didn’t wait for him to plod off. He gave a wide berth and avoided his eyes as he made for the door. He pulled it shut soft enough as not to make a sound and lingered on the other side until he heard Atem walk away.

“I hate myself…” He murmured and buried his tears in his knees on the hallway floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You: _Oh boy! Hot Cocoa prompt day! I can’t wait to read some heartwarming fluff!_  
>  Me: _hehe angst machine go brrrrr_


	5. A Crown of Thorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba is severely injured in his crash landing and is treated by the palace medicine men.  
> [Rating: T, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, cw: drugs in a medicinal context]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We’re gonna bend canon a little here since DSOD implies he arrives unscathed but I’m still in whump Kaiba mode from YGOME season.

Atem rerouted the traffic and to do from the infirmary to his own chambers despite squabbling protests about high thread counts and bloodstains. His attendants dumped Kaiba still spitting foreign-tongued venom on the sheets, left arm bent across his stomach at an unnatural angle that made him nauseous to look at. Kaiba writhed and his thigh revealed blood already leaking through the dense leather, at odds with the stark white of the bed and his clothes. They had to come off, there was no way around it. Atem watched from a careful distance as Mahad and his priests tentatively rolled him on his side and removed the coat.

“Don’t touch me!” He hissed, incomprehensible to everyone but Atem and doubling over in a sharp pang that wracked through his broken ribs.

“You. Hold him.” Mahad directed, stoicism unwavering in the heat of the emergency as his assistants pinned his legs at the knees. A poor choice for this particular patient, his fervor only blooming in a display of defiance. Atem tried to intervene, freeing the catch release on the duel disk and leaning in to whisper.

“Kaiba...” He lifted his hand, positioning him to remove the heavy contraption. “Let me help.”

He groaned in pain, but he was physically incapable of snatching away the broken arm.

“If we don’t set this it will only get worse… We won’t be able to duel.”

Kaiba consented, but only to Atem’s touch, landing a stiff kick to the chest of another priest trying to remove his boots and pants.

“My king, I cannot work like this,” Mahad sighed in exasperation. Mana and her patient demeanor were nowhere to be found, she’d not been allowed to treat this case for modesty’s sake.

“Mahad, please, you don’t understand--”

“Prepare the sedative.”

Another priest fished in their supplies for the gnarled roots of mandrake, petite purple stars of petals from the dried flowers falling to the floor as he ground it down with mortar and pestle. He mixed it with stiff vinegar that burned the nostrils and encouraged Kaiba to drink.

He spat it out.

Atem looked away and Mahad held Kaiba’s nose until he was forced to swallow, dribble of leftovers escaping his lips and he heaved a cough on some that found its way down his windpipe. In a few minutes, Kaiba’s pupils blew wide from the atropine, babbling in sheer terror while caught in the mounting grips of horrific delirium. He gurgled out some desperate delphic musings over Mokuba and and Atem pushed back his hair, grabbing his face until he was forced to look at him. He ran a thumb over his cheek bone.

“It’s alright, I’m right here.”

Kaiba drifted into unconsciousness, the pain of betrayal still written in his eyes.

* * *

It wasn’t until the silent hours before the dawn that Kaiba stirred from his forced slumber. Atem had made every effort to stay awake, but he’d drifted off despite himself, resting amid a nest of cushions on the floor since his own bed was occupied. Mahad insisted it was safe to move him elsewhere, but Atem wouldn’t hear anything of disturbing the dragon lest he wake unannounced, breathing fire and burning the palace down to cinders. He knew better than to bother arguing with the pharaoh over anything relating to Set in this life or the last and instead left behind a shallow, bronze dish of medicine near the bedside lamp.

Kaiba sniffled through a battered and bloodied nose, shifting under a thin sheet they’d cast over his nakedness despite the sweltering summer heat. He aught to have picked a more opportune time for a vacation, Atem mused to himself, poking his eyes over the edge of the bed to find Kaiba on his back, pale skin peppered with careful sutures in the moonlight. His arm was set with sticks and bandages and bound across his chest to prevent him from moving it out of place. Healing would take time, but would be manageable. If he listened…

Kaiba gave a wounded sort of sobbing sound from the shock of waking up in a strange place and in excruciating pain. He bolted upright, only to flop back into the pillows with another defeated groan of anguish. Atem didn’t make any sudden moves to avoid spooking the wounded jackal as he reached to light the oil lamp, adjusting the wick to keep the light low enough to only make out the shapes of their faces in the darkness.

“How are you feeling?” He whispered.

“How do you _think!”_ Kaiba spat out, making a show of trying to turn away from him but the pain in his arms and cuts wouldn’t allow it. He huffed in frustration, mumbling against the downy pillows. “Get out. And tell that _magician_ of yours I if I see him again I’ll wring his neck.”

Atem contemplated teasing Kaiba about being in _his_ bed and that if he’d like to be alone he’d have to be the one to leave but decided against it, mostly out of fear that he was liable to take it as a challenge. He ignored his biting remarks.

“I was supposed to give you this when you woke up...” Atem lifted the thin bronze dish from beside the light, looking at the thin latex residue resting at the bottom, dried up in a flaky yellow-white film. “It’s medicine. For the pain.”

“What, are you trying to poison me again with more of that hocus pocus witchcraft?” Kaiba closed his eyes, not in a restful gentleness but squeezed as though holding back another groan. “I told you to get out. I’m fine.”

“It’s not a spell,” Atem picked up a stick of incense, catching it on fire in the lantern flame and snuffed it out to smoldering. He dipped the stick in the medicine until a line of smoke drifted up from the dish. “It’s milk of the poppy.”

“...You...You mean like morphine?” He sounded a bit bashful. Atem furrowed his brow.

“No, I just told you it’s poppy, from the little red flow--”

“Yeah I heard you the first time,” He fumbled his fingers in the sheets, still looking nervous about the whole thing. “I’ll do it.”

Atem was merely pleased he was being more congenial for him then he had for the others. He sat up on the edge of the bed and held the sweet-smelling smoke under his nose.

“Umm, b-breath as much as you can...” Atem’s face flushed when his fingers holding the dish bumped Kaiba’s lips. He complied, and soon enough his death grip on the hem of the sheets relaxed to limpness. Kaiba drifted out of consciousness again, and Atem was grateful to see that this time it was with the faint beginnings of a smile.

* * *

Atem endeavored to be a good host, albeit Kaiba was an unusual if not unexpected guest with some unusual if not unexpected needs to be attended to. Again, the priests had offered their assistance but following the bout of psychological trauma he’d been afflicted with on his arrival, Kaiba had taken to throwing things from Atem’s bedside table drawers in their direction when they came in to check on him. Atem was quite fond of a few of his trinkets and emptied the drawers far out of reach before barring all his attendants from entering for the time being. Mahad was nonplussed with this decision. He gave the young pharaoh another tincture for the morning’s treatment but not without first insisting he would need attention from someone more medically literate before the day was out, whether he liked it or not.

Atem waited until the door was shut so the servants wouldn’t see him waiting on his guest. He lifted the tray with coffee, honey cakes, and today's bowl of curative and brought it over to the bedside where Kaiba was already awake, watching him like a hawk through two beady blue eyes.

“When are we going to duel?”

Atem rolled with laughter, nearly spilling the tray. Kaiba didn’t look so amused.

“Is that truly all you came here for?” He smiled, handing Kaiba a warm cup of coffee that he accepted with his good hand. “In a few weeks, when your arm heals. You have my word. Perhaps you don’t believe me, but I’m looking forward to it as well.”

“Looking forward to loosing, pharaoh?” Kaiba turned his nose up at the sweet cakes. “You’re going soft.”

“I never said anything about loosing,” Atem’s gaze met Kaiba’s with paralleled veracity until something in the blue warmed an almost imperceptible degree that one could almost mistake for happiness. He held up another of the cakes. “Eat. You need your strength.”

“I hate sweet things,” Kaiba was hardly in a position for demands and negotiations but Atem navigated his raw attitude with all the poise of courtly diplomacy.

“Perhaps you should try again, I suspect it would pair well with your bitterness,” _Some_ of the poise. “What shall I have them prepare you instead?”

Kaiba looked away and grumbled under his breath, scrunching his hand up in the sheet again and his pale skin turned a bit peachy.

“I’m sorry?” He leaned in closer.

“...Chicken soup...”

Atem politely fought the urge to laugh at the innocence of the request, reminding him of the times Yuugi had been laid up from school and Jii-san made homemade soba noodles.

“I’m afraid we don’t have chickens here. Pheasant will have to do.”

* * *

Atem allowed Kaiba the space to sleep off the better part of the afternoon following his hearty stew and didn’t return until the cool of the day, throwing open the doors to the terrace and letting the wind brush it’s fingers through the gauzy curtains. He brought along a sloshing amphorae that was nearly the size of his chest and Kaiba’s interest was sufficiently piqued.

“What’s in the bottle?” He asked, leveling a suspicious look.

Atem didn’t answer, he merely picked out an enormous bowl from his decorative collection and placed it on the side table. He carefully poured out the contents of the jug until the muddy water and pond plants had filled it to the brim.

“Pharaoh, what kind of filth are you bringing in here?” Kaiba sighed and flopped his head back on the pillow, no longer interested.

“Shhh, just watch,” He carefully fluffed one grand blue flower bud, an unopened center piece. “I picked this before the dawn and kept it in the jar all day.”

Atem picked up the dish of medicine, left forgotten from the morning. A cooling salve meant to soothe and heal the innumerable light burns from both fire and sun. Kaiba’s ship had caught ablaze when it crashed. Luckily he’d engineered fail safes for every scenario but he hadn’t escaped unscathed. The journey to the palace from the desert on foot with Kaiba in the canvas stretcher hadn’t been short either and his cheeks were flushed with sunburn.

Atem sat on the side of the bed and made no unpredictable moves when he reached for Kaiba’s good arm.

“W-What are you doing?!” He snatched it back. Atem hadn’t expected much else.

“I am going to apply some aloe to the burns,” He said patiently.

“I can do it myself.”

“With what arm?” Checkmate. Atem sighed. “You can let me do it or I can call in Mahad--”

“Fine, whatever...” Kaiba looked terrifically uncomfortable as though he might jump out of his skin at the mere thought of being touched. He leapt in fright when Atem’s cool fingers met the first of the burns.

“Look. Watch the flower,” Atem said, hoping to distract him from the intimacy of the moment. Kaiba’s shaking and unease was a slap across the face in a way that made his heart ache for a reason he couldn’t quite place. “You’ll miss it.”

Atem worked higher, over his bicep and onto his shoulder where frankly there were no burns to treat but the stiffness, whether he’d arrived with it or was a byproduct of his lingering unease, was its own injury worthy of anodyne. Kaiba let a small pleased sound escape his throat when Atem prodded a knot and he tried to mask it with a cough.

“That’s enough,” Kaiba didn’t tear his eyes away from the lotus blossom slowly unfurling in the light of the evening sun through the windows. “I can do the rest...”

Atem resisted pulling his hands away, but respected what he asked. He wrung his hands in his lap, spreading the last of the cool balm on his skin. Kaiba didn’t move to put any on the rest of the burns, he was simply transfixed by the gradual unveiling of the bud until a golden heart was revealed on a cloud of indigo, the beauty floating above the murky depths where it had been conceived.

“Hnnn...” Kaiba murmured. “If you blink, you’ll miss it.”

“Yes.” Atem whispered.

He wasn’t watching the flower. Only Kaiba.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you wondered why Kaiba hates the medicine men so much in chapter two, here you go lol  
> (This one’s not gonna make the personal favorites list for the month)


	6. Still Falls the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Shower  
> Atem flees the palace before a storm and Kaiba takes chase.   
> [Rating: M, light angst, some smut as a treat, established relationship]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We will definitely return to fill “red” sometime in the coming days but I didn’t feel like doing two hurt/comfort prompts back to back. For now, please enjoy this atypical addition to my canon, the rare PWP entry ♡

It was two in the afternoon and the pharaoh had yet to return from his temper tantrum. Of course, Seto had been partially to blame for the sparks. Atem had been holding court to discuss trade agreements with the distant city of Tell-el-Dab’a and while Seto refrained from questioning what sort of negotiations could possibly be under such profound scrutiny on this side of paradise and why any of them were bothering at all, he’d made the mistake of intervening in the discussions to criticize some of Atem’s more antiquated notions of economics.

He could hardly be blamed. Atem drew up commerce policy with all the prudence of Mokuba given free reign in a zen-mode sandbox video game and it was almost painful to watch them all squabble over how best to haggle when they could be fattening their already eternally infinite treasury by exploiting the obvious arbitrage opportunities on the spice trade between the Hyksos and Punt. Don’t even get him started on the grain reserves problem. If they were so terribly worried about variability in the year’s wheat harvest, Seto had tried to explain that they should consider negotiating the option to buy future grain product from neighboring kingdoms at a fixed price (for a premium, of course) but he might as well have been speaking Greek. After his third go around at explaining the indisputable long-term gains of trading commodities futures to his royal ignorance, voices were raised and insults were flying and Atem had adjourned court and ridden off to brood without so much as saying goodbye to Seto.

Seto brooded in kind on the terrace outside of what had slowly become _their_ room rather than _Atem’s_ room, owing to the fact he’d never been fond of being stuffed into that _priest’s_ old chambers...And his waning reasons to be in his own bed against his waxing reasons to be in the pharaoh’s with every passing moon. He found his penchant for personal space had diminished when it was Atem the space was shared with.

Seto heaved a longing sigh, guilt bubbling up in his chest over their fight. He shouldn’t have been so hard on Atem. He tried to picture himself being gruff with Mokuba’s lack of understanding and couldn’t. Love required a certain gentleness he was still getting the hang of…

A rare flock of cumulonimbus clouds, grey and engorged with sea water rolled in from the north. Seto could already spot in the distance where palm trees whipped up in the low pressure system and the patter of rain was beginning in the fields. He grabbed his satchel of provisions from the room and started for the stables to ride out after him.

  
  


Seto had become intimate with all the pharaoh’s hiding places and he had one good guess where he’d wandered off too. He groaned. It was over an hour’s ride out to the oasis, sprung up in the crevice between two sheer rock faces where the water pooled and the towering steeples provided shade over the blue at the heat of the day. They’d been there together on many happier occasions.

Today, Seto sidled up to the scene amid whipping winds and a torrential downpour, clothes soaked to dripping heavy and his bangs running like a faucet in front of his eyes. Now and again he choked on the streams that ebbed into his mouth and his horse whined and kicked up against the squelching wet sands. Atem’s hair had gone flat, all the perk sopped out of the spines and he fought to push it back while he fumbled where Sa-ash was tied to a sturdy palm tree.

“Atem!” He cried out. “Get your ass over here!”

“Go away, Kaiba!” Atem’s words could hardly be heard through the pounding of the storm, but his use of the name ‘Kaiba’—so rare these days—was evidence enough that he was still sore over their argument.

“Shit...” He hissed under his breath, once again feeling regretful as he watched Atem’s losing battle against the storm. He, too, was drenched so thoroughly his tunic was translucent and clung to his body like plastic wrap. A crack of lightning broke over the sky, thunder following in an instant and the horses both spooked to bucking. They couldn’t ride back in this weather. Seto slid off his mount and placed a hand on Atem’s shoulder.

“Atem, it’s dangerous, we should wait out the storm...” He said as softly as the noise of the wind and the rain allowed for. The stubborn pharaoh shook him off.

“Fine.” He deadpanned without looking his direction. He left Sa-ash tied under the safety of the thin treeline and Seto followed suit, tying his own horse up beside her. Atem marched up the crest of a near-by hill where an all too familiar rocky outcrop promised minute shelter from the weather.

The strength of the winds coupled with the driving rain meant they had to cram together standing shoulder to sopping wet shoulder under the small awning to keep dry. The silence was a brick wall between them and all Seto could focus on was the sound of Atem’s breathing.

“You didn’t have to run away...” He finally whispered.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” Atem spat. “I would have come back. I wanted to be left alone.”

“We should talk things out better than we do...”

“Oh, so you’re an expert on that too now?”

“I didn’t come here to fight...” He suppressed the urge to snap back and escalate further, remembering something his brother once said about breaking the cycle.

“Then what did you come here for, Seto?” Not Kaiba. Progress.

Another crack of thunder shook the rocks after a brilliant purple flash and the pharaoh shuttered with a small fright. Thunderstorms were rare out here, but Seto knew they didn’t sit well with him. The flashes and vicious cracks conjured too many bad memories. He slipped his arm down between them, brushing his knuckles over the back of Atem’s hand.

“I was worried about you...” He slipped their fingers together until a few were awkwardly interlaced back-to-back.

“You didn’t have to be.”

“But I was.”

Atem opened his arm up so they could hold hands properly, fingers strung together in a tight-locked weave.

“I’m sorry...” Seto tasted the apology and he found it felt surprisingly good when it was genuine. “For challenging you in front of your court. I’d be furious if you came in my board room and did that. I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry, too. For running away,” Atem gave his hand a firm squeeze of reassurance, letting another brief moment pass before he reached up with his other hand to pull Seto’s forehead to his. “We’ll try again.”

Seto placed a shy kiss on his lips and Atem deepened the gesture, slicking Seto’s wet hair back to reveal his entire face he so rarely let the world see. Thunder and rain still cracked around their sacred alcove and Atem shivered against his chest. Seto wrapped him in his arms, trapping him between the rocks and his body and nibbled in his usual way down the tender skin of his neck.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?” He whispered when he reached his ear, tonguing at the small holes in the lobes where his earrings should have been. His hand drifted down between two cling wrapped thighs.

“You think I would forget?” Atem chuckled, but the sound was throaty and he subtly redistributed his weight to accommodate his wandering.

“Rain’s bad...” Seto looped his hand under the bottom of the tunic achingly slow, daring Atem to stop him. “Terrible, really. We might be stuck here a while.”

“I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” Atem’s fingers fastidiously worked over Seto’s loose linen button-down that he’d forced the palace tailors to fashion. The fabric clung reluctantly to his chest and fell to the ground with a wet _thw_ _o_ _p_ when he shoved it off and Seto shivered in the cool storm air.

His hand stuck on his rain-damp inner thigh, fingers not moving as slow as he would have liked over the skin, all jumpy circuitry making his way north on the tacky flesh. Atem rebuttaled with with wounding bites to the throat, the sort he could only allow when he didn’t have to roll into the office tomorrow morning, which meant it was an indulgence he could afford all the time. He let a heavy breath escape between their faces, as humid as the moist air.

Seto wrapped his hands under the tops of Atem’s legs, hoisting him up against the wall to eliminate the inequality of distance between their faces. Atem’s tunic crept up over his hips and his heels dug into Seto’s back to keep himself afloat. Seto’s fingers drifted from the small of his back until they crept dangerously close to an unspoken invitation.

“Mmmm… You know, that might be difficult out here,” Atem moaned when his hands pressed hungry thumb-print bruises in his thighs, retaliating by pulling his hair until his head raised and their eyes met across a lustful dusting of lips.

“You think I don’t come prepared for every eventuality?” Seto chewed on the pharaoh’s lip, Atem trying to twist free until he gave in, dipping his tongue behind teeth and fishing for a good answer. He nipped the tip of Seto’s tongue and loved watching him hiss.

“Your mind’s sunk lower than the waters of Pachons...” Atem reached a hand between their bodies, wrapping one devious hand around his length straining under the weight of the storm-soaked cotton.

“Only for you,” Seto hummed against his hair, breathing in the smell of incense and summer rain while the pharaoh’s familiar well-trained touch wore over all the memorized motions that sent him bucking into his touch. “Nnn... _Atem, wait...”_ He pleaded, knees almost buckling with the effort to hold them up.

“And if I don’t want to?” He asked mercilessly, only quickening his motions and sucking at Seto’s jaw until he earned a soft moan of _fuck_ in reward for the effort. Seto teased one dubious dry finger over his rim, feeling his body clench with nerves in his arms.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought...” Seto was reluctant to break their embrace, keeping their lips locked when he pulling Atem off the wall and the pharaoh clung to him in a four-limb choke hold while he knelt down to fish through his satchel.

“Hurry up...” Atem ground their hips together, threatening to bowl over their precarious balance and send them tumbling backwards into the storm. Seto groaned, horny and impatient.

“Then _you_ find it,” He pecked kisses down his throat between the words, finding Atem’s cheek with his hand he no longer needed for searching the bag. Atem smirked against his lips when his wily fingers found their success, plunking a small oil bottle into Seto’s eager grasp. He emptied it on both their hands, pinning Atem back against the rocky wall so they could continue their fevered explorations of all the well-trodden boulevards crossing one-another’s skin.

Atem keened against the two fingers Seto stole inside, catching a heel right in his kidney and nearly sending them to the ground in a rather inelegant and muddy haste.

“Hold still,” Seto laughed, trying to regain a steady hold under his oil-slick thighs and struggling spectacularly. Atem buried his hands in his hair, being decidedly unhelpful in the war effort.

“Just fuck me already,” His breathless, gravelly diction on the work _fuck_ set Seto reeling with lust all over again and he grabbed one lean calf to pull Atem’s leg higher before hitching up their bodies against the wall.

“As you wish, your godliness,” He didn’t miss his favorite part, watching Atem’s round nose scrunch up as though he were about to sneeze when he entered, first squirming at the odd feeling before the tension melted out right under his fingers with a stuttering _S-S-S-Seto!_ Atem whined when he backed out again, only to thrust deeper the next time. If he wanted to be _fucked_ Seto would nail him to the rock wall like a painting.

The sex was always better after they fought. Seto wouldn’t be caught dead admitting that because he didn’t _like_ to fight, but there was something about the pharaoh’s bratty indigence that reset the pieces in the old game that tripped them into love in the first place.

Atem loved to run his mouth and he babbled through their mingling like an air traffic control tower and Seto tried to radio into every word he plucked from his lips.

_Yes, yes, faster! Nnn-ah! H-higher...N-no-YES-yes…! Like that! D-don’t-Nnnhh-Stop, don’t st—s-Seto, I’m so close…_

Atem reached down a ring-clad hand to greedily stoke himself to completion, leaving the effort of keeping himself suspended squarely on Seto and his toes curled into his back when he finished on his front. He progressed from limp and contented to painfully overstimulated, clawing at Seto’s shoulders and pleading him to find his own release. He came buried so deep it was difficult to say where he ended and Atem began. He crushed his weight over Atem, shaking with pleasure and knocking rug-burned knees against the sandstone one more time. Atem kept them bound together until the euphoria wore out its welcome and the stickiness on their thighs cooled off in the foggy air.

The rain had stopped.

Atem slid down the rocks, collapsing against the wall in a fit of exhaustion along with a grand yawn that he hardly deserved when Seto had done all the work. Seto laid his head in his lap.

“So...” He asked after a long moment, a mischievous smile spreading across his smug, satisfied face. “Are you ready to ride back?”

Seto reached a hand up, earning an undignified squeal when he pinched Atem’s ass.

“Oh, _fuck_ you!”

“Back for more so soon? You’re insatiable, pharaoh… But I think it can be arranged.”

Atem rolled with laughter and shoved his head into a well-deserved face-full of sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter attempts to capture the spirit of the sort of fun, casual make-up sex you have with someone you’ve been comfortable with for a long time ha ha ha


	7. Soak Up the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Scarf  
> Atem helps Kaiba thwart his sunburn problem.  
> [Rating: G, fluff]

_Sensitive_ wasn’t a word that Atem would have chosen to describe Kaiba’s vexatious spirit but his porcelain skin was another matter altogether and Kaiba was certainly _sensitive_ about that. Gods forbid if Atem noticed his flushed face after an evening of wine or the mottled pink blotches down his back if he spied him leaving the bath. He trained himself to politely ignore the way Kaiba’s face flooded with rouge from the crest of his high cheekbones down to the seat of his heart in his chest when he was incensed...or embarrassed. His unfortunate run-ins with mosquitoes on the riverbanks left him with swollen welts in every imaginable—and a few unimaginable—places. He had allergies to certain forms of bran but not others and had a bout of hives after indulging in some wild berries, Atem couldn’t hardly keep track of his innumerable complaints anymore.

But his most loathed mortal enemy was the sun.

The irony that Atem was the sun-incarnate yet every caress of the desert’s blistering rays left Kaiba to wallow in anguish was not lost on him. In fact, he found it hilarious.

It’s not that Atem had been unfazed by the sun himself during his life, but paradise came equipped with a few subtle luxuries of idealized living and immortal immunity to mosquito bites and sunburn were among the rewards. The gods of Aaru didn’t deign to bestow such blessings on invaders.

They had tried the obvious strategies that his people used in life. Kaiba doused himself in rice bran (the one he _wasn’t_ allergic to, Atem learned) and some jasmine salves but the effort proved futile. The barrier wasn’t thick enough to shield his delicate constitution if they were outside for more than an hour. Atem suspected part of the issue was his unfamiliarity with anything but the florescent lights of the Kaiba Corp halls. No inch of Kaiba’s flesh was safe from ruin if he ventured beyond the safety of the shade. From the knuckles of his toes to the tips of his ears, he’d even managed the task of burning the palms of his hands on one unfortunate occasion where he drifted off beside the pool and the movement of the sun across the afternoon sky crept up on him in his sleep.

Kaiba was easy to overheat, a poetic match for his temper, and was rarely found wandering out of his chambers or beyond the shady acacias of the garden between the hours of ten and two when he was most vulnerable anyhow. Atem had the tailors make him loose linen button-downs with long sleeves and collars that covered his neck but was still unsuccessfully coercing him to try ‘skirts’ (as Kaiba was so fond of calling his traditional shendyts) over his insistence on trousers. Alas his dignity still trumped comfort for now.

The most fragile and by extension most miserable patch of Kaiba’s skin was his face. Once the portrait of vanity on his arrival, the pharmacy of sun-balms he’d lathered on left his cheeks pebbled with pricks of red and blooming rosacea. Not that it made any difference to Atem, but he could tell Kaiba was self-conscious with the way he hid more of his face behind his bangs and his hands. The worst of it was the purple blistering on his cheekbones where the sun struck its most direct blows. The bruising never faded and Atem watched Kaiba press his fingers and splash water on the tender flesh when he thought no one was watching.

Atem was at a loss for how to help. It wasn’t a problem he was well acquainted with solving but the amusement had long since worn off when he noticed how it was affecting Kaiba, and like all his friends, Atem was inclined to find an answer to put the thing to rest.

He was contemplating the issue while picking out sand grains from under his nails in yet another dry meeting entertaining propositions from eastern caravans, some bumbling magi less adept than Mahaad showcasing their charms and alchemy. For all this troupe’s magical marvels none of that was what caught his eye. It was their scarf headdresses they’d worn to protected themselves from the sun and sand on their long westward voyage, stitched and tasseledwith checked patterns. An ingenious invention truly, so much so he wondered how Kaiba hadn’t thought of it first. He didn’t do so well with inventions not requiring electricity. When the strangers finished their dazzling display, Atem approached the traders to ask about their accessories.

Atem fished through his trunks, looking for something he’d been gifted ages ago from another such party of visitors to the court. He tore through every fashion of weaves and colors, searching for one he’d kept because it had reminded him of Kaiba all along. At last, his fingers found the silk threads of a magnificently crafted shawl, dyed in precious, chromatic indigos and laced with delicate silver stitching. The fabric still clung to the aroma of the perfumes he kept in the trunk, but would fade eventually. He grabbed a matching silver tie and reverently folded the fabric before seeking out Kaiba in the gardens.

He found him barefoot and napping under his favorite line of sycamores, an arrangement he never would have imagined finding Kaiba in before he arrived here but it was becoming something of a habit as of late. His scribbled parchments on repairing his vessel were discarded in the thin grass as though the thought of leaving held little interest for him today. For a moment, he reminded Atem too much of his former self and his heart twisted with pining. He almost elected not to disturb him.

“I’m awake, pharaoh,” He didn’t open his eyes, he simply let out a long contented sigh, scooting his toes out of the sun where the shade had drifted away on him during his slumber. “What are you after, huh?”

“I have something for you,” Atem plopped down beside him on the grass.

“A game?”

“A gift of sorts,” He smiled when Kaiba opened his lazy eyes and gave his familiar dismissive _hnn._ ”Sit up.”

He groaned in reply as if Atem were asking him to start doing chores. Not that he suspected Kaiba had ever done _chores_ in his life, but it reminded him of Jii-san shattering Yuugi’s hopes of a slow Saturday morning becoming an equally slow Saturday afternoon. Atem unfurled the scarf in his lap and to his delight, Kaiba already seemed enthralled with the blue silk fabric. He folded it long ways into a triangle as the traders had done, draping the folded edge over his brow. Kaiba flinched at the casual brush of Atem’s fingers against his cheek.

“I-It’s for the sun...” Why did Kaiba’s apprehension sting worse every time? He finished the wrap until only Kaiba’s steely blue eyes were visible, dazzling in their rhyming shade against the fabric, and fastened it in place with the silver tie. He pulled it back off his nose again, conscientious of every prick of contact between their skin along the way. “You can pull it down, if you’re in the shade.”

“Obviously,” Kaiba didn’t move, just sat still with a passive, unreadable look in his eyes. For the briefest moment when Atem saw him, some loitering old tomcat in the sycamore grove, dressed in linen robes with the blue pulled down to his eyes, the only person he could see was _Set._

Did he know what he was doing when he fell back on tired habits, sitting under the same tree he always had? Did he remember his taste for marjoram? Is that why he put it in everything? Was he still a strong swimmer and terrible on horseback? Did he wake up after nightmares, long before the dawn?

Atem was desperate to ask, but knew better than to try. He was drowning in longing and nostalgia now, untethered from the garden and drawn out into the current of wistful memory. It was written on his face. Kaiba looked at him knowingly and had the couth not to pry.

“Thanks,” It was earnest.

“Of course.”

Atem left him again to his scrolls and daydreams to wander the gardens alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Where possible, I always try to draw on academic sources for details on how Ancient Egyptians would have done things, but (aside from research on their mostly unsuccessful attempts at sunscreens) I could find very little about their sun-protection measures. I chose to draw on more Arab-influenced customs here, but the use of the agal and keffiyah for protection can be traced back as early as Babylon, and arguably to Sumer, and some variation of scarf-based head protection is culturally ubiquitous for desert peoples ranging geographically from the Sahara to the Arabian peninsula. Kaiba needs one because he is DEFINITELY getting baked in the desert sun!


	8. Petit Mort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atem falls asleep after an arduous day of pharaonic duties.  
> [Rating: T, fluff, established relationship, implied sexual content]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Carry

Seto had been waiting all day to see Atem, taking casual strolls past the throne room every few hours or so only to find him deep in a string of successive meetings with no quarter for rest in between. He kept his arm pressed up under his chin in an effort to affect a pensive air but Seto was too familiar with the gesture from his own board meetings not to see it for what it was: an attempt not to fall asleep on his throne. The palace was buzzing with preparations for the grand festival of Opet and Seto wasn’t sure why they needed another ‘grand festival’ when they’d just finished celebrating the suitably ‘grand’ new year only a moon ago. But, life tends to grow dull without something to strive towards and Aaru filled the gap with eternal worship to the pantheon that blessed their dimension into existence. And so, Seto learned, its residents bustled about from month to month preparing for the next evening of wining and dining with all the crunch and scramble of the next duel disk software update at Kaiba Corp headquarters. 

Seto couldn’t differentiate between one holiday and the next save for how they revolved around planting and harvest times, the cyclic flooding and receding of the Nile, and he could hardly be bothered to learn. Except of course for the Feast of the Valley, a day for _communing with loved ones who passed on to the afterlife,_ and how disgustingly fitting it had been for the night he shared his first kiss with Atem. The moment was no longer fresh and tender, but his chest still burned with the memory.

Atem had explained the concept of Opet more than once but all he retained was something about celebrating the pharaoh’s blessing with the power of a god and so more than all the others this festival demanded Atem’s full input and participation. Seto had been preoccupied with planning the groundbreaking for a new monument’s construction. Much to Mahad’s chagrin, Atem even allowed his directive on the engineering, finally acquiescing to the value of his modern physics knowledge if it meant outshining everything built in the valley prior. The pharaoh never passed up a chance to show off before an audience. 

For now, the planning was on hold while the priests and servants were distracted with the festivities, leaving Seto with little to keep himself occupied aside from darting behind pillars and meeting the pharaoh’s bleary, longing eyes from across the dais. He sneaked a mocking face at Mahad’s droning on about proper attire and procedure for the sunrise ritual and bright red stuttering face on _be sure you don’t sleep in because I will_ **_not_ ** _be entering your chambers to wake you._ Atem flashed a mischievous smile in his direction before hiding it behind one gilded hand. Seto fell back into the shadows of the colonnade and drifted away.

The chill of winter was short lived in Aaru, but the first buds of spring yet lingered on the horizon and a comfortable briskness settled over the palace with nightfall. Sconces flickered in the halls with imperfect firelight but even the shadows here lacked their familiar grip of unease. The moon trailed down on its western descent, marking the hour well past midnight when the pharaoh at last wandered out of the throne room, always the first to enter and the last to leave. He waved off his gratuitous entourage of guards for the night, reminding Seto of locking the glass doors of his own hundred-story crystal palace in the buzzing Domino three AM streetlight.

“You should be in bed…” Atem bore purple rings under his eyes with drooping shoulders and the posture rendered him more petit than he usually carried himself. 

“I didn’t want to sleep.” The _without you_ went unspoken. 

“Hmmm…” Atem rubbed his neck and a few cracks revealed his stiffness when he rolled his shoulders. “Take a walk with me.”

For someone who never wanted to get out of bed once he was in it, Atem had difficulty falling asleep without winding down, a problem Seto could appreciate. He led them in silence to the front of the palace where the flights of granite stairs carved into the hillside wandered down to the city far below, the houses mere silhouettes dotting the landscape with no humming lights or bustling cars. Only the stillness of the night. 

It wasn’t much of a walk in the end. Atem lowered himself a few steps from the top in an inelegant flop and Seto joined beside him, two steps higher. They were both silent for a long moment, Seto remembering his own distaste for small talk after a long day of meetings that could have been better handled as emails. Atem let out a long breath before leaning his head on Seto’s thigh, running his fingers up and down his calf absently over the linen. Seto curled his toes in his sandals. 

“Tell me about your day,” Atem said. 

“I didn’t do anything,” It was an odd thing to say, one he didn’t think he’d ever grow accustomed to. Seto leaned back on one arm, burying the fingers of his other hand down to the scalp in red-tipped locks and giving a scratch that earned a soft moan of appreciation from the cat lazing over his lap. “You were the busy one.”

Atem nodded, shifting a bit to make himself more comfortable on the fat part of his thigh. 

“You must have done something,” His hand stilled its massage against his leg for a moment. His voice was quieter. “Did you…work on your ship?”

“Huh? No! No, I…” Seto answered a bit too quickly, fisting his hand in Atem’s hair before loosening his grip and giving a sigh of his own. “No, I reviewed the sluice designs for the watercourse that will run to the hanging gardens.”

“Will they be better than the ones in Babylon?” Atem started his caresses again and Seto shivered when his nails grazed the soft spot of his ankle. He snickered at the question.

“Yes, I promise it will be better than the ones in Babylon.”

“Did you see pictures of them?” Atem rarely asked about… the future? His old reality? It was a raw topic.

“No, they were destroyed. No one knows what they looked like.”

“Then how do you know yours will be better?” Seto could hear the way Atem’s lips quirked up through his voice.

“Because _I’m_ designing them—”

“Seto, I’m just teasing—”

“And I’m designing them for you.” He flushed and was glad that Atem wasn’t looking. “They’ll be perfect.”

“I know,” He whispered, and after a pause. “Tell me how your aqueducts work.”

“It’s boring… You’ve had enough of that for one day,” Seto breathed slow, inventing new constellations between the pricks of starlight under the new moon. 

“I’ve never had enough of you,” Atem squeezed a hand around the meat of his calf and Seto melted anew. 

He started monologuing the way Mokuba warned was just an info dump about gear pumps to the millhouse and tools to measure the slope and grade of the piping. Talked through his attempts to fashion a slide rule for computations. About irrigation through the garden locks to avoid standing water and floods when it rained. About the weight distribution of archways, materials that wouldn’t be worn thin by the running water, and flumes to the distribution tanks. About sources and surveying. About extra leets and penstocks that would run to the city for public water. 

Seto wasn’t sure how long he’d been rambling when he noticed the absence of Atem’s touch and the soft purrs escaping his royal nose (kings _do not_ snore, he would insist). He’d fallen fast asleep on his lap. Careful not to disturb his light slumber, Seto slipped his arms under his slight frame, one beneath his knees and the other supporting his neck. He pulled him against his chest, burying his lips and nose in his hair before hoisting him off to a peaceful slumber in their shared bed.  
  


* * *

  
The following morning in the quiet prelude to Opet, Seto woke up well before the dawn. Old habits fade slowly even if the nightmares had faded faster. Dew slipped in though imperfectly sealed windows and crept about the room before settling on cool tips of the pharaoh’s hair, juxtaposed against his damp bangs stuck to his brow. He slept with his lips parted to accommodate the way his definitely-not-snoring stuck in his throat and it didn’t do his morning breath any favors. Seto pushed back the strands of sweat mottled hair, running his appreciative fingers over the curves of his unusually peaceful face, free of its eternal stoicism and mischief. He didn’t stir. 

“Atem…” Seto dipped his nose to drink from the scent of his bare neck and chest that peaked out from under the sheets. “It’s time to wake up.”

Without opening an eye, Atem groaned from borderline cognizance, his adam’s apple bobbing against a wandering kiss, before flipping over and pancaking between the downy pillows and warm skin. Seto sighed, reluctant to be more firm, but the tease of daybreak was already lightening on the horizon. 

“Atem…” He tried again, rolling him over on his back only to watch him drag the pillow along over his face, still feigning sleepy ignorance with another soft groan. He didn’t need to see his face to recognize the stern pout. Seto didn’t resist the smile that broke over his features knowing it would go unseen. “Don’t act like I’m the one who wants to attend your little sun party.”

He pulled the pillow away from his eyes but Atem merely replaced it with one melodramatic bronze forearm, other limbs still tossed akimbo under the blankets. Seto ran his palms down his ribs, long fingers digging into the taught line of his lats before tracking lower to thumb over his hips. Atem’s stomach flexed with ticklishness and he swallowed the noise in the hollow of his elbow, more awake than he wanted to let on and hoping to be left alone and drift off once again. Seto pinched one side under the ribs.

“Atem--”

“Stop it!”

His stern command lost all its dictatorial airs between hoarse voice and naked body. Seto gave a devious grin.

“You don’t want to miss out on all the fun…” He leaned down to nip his teeth at the tender skin inside one thigh, watching Atem squirm.

“Do what pleases you, I intend to sleep through it.” He made a show of hiding his face behind his arms and letting his body lie still with forced, even breathing. 

“What pleases me?” Seto licked his lips and neglected to pick his head up, giving another nip to warn of his intentions, a little closer this time. Atem stiffened. “You’re sure about that, pharaoh?”

No reply. Atem played at being asleep once again, but the encouraging way his knees relaxed open did not go unnoticed or unanswered. 

Mahad ought to keep his promises about leaving the pharaoh’s slumber undisturbed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Pridecember 2020! ♡  
> [We'll see how many of these bad boys I can churn out before I burn out ha ha ha]
> 
> ♡ Please leave your thoughts in the comments, I'm always striving to improve my writing! ♡  
>  _Formerly known as **talladeganights**_  
>  Find me on Tumblr: [RookSacrifice](https://rooksacrifice.tumblr.com/) (main) and [atembomb](https://atembomb.tumblr.com/) (Yu-Gi-Oh!)  
> Find me on Twitter: [@RookSacrifice](https://twitter.com/RookSacrifice)  
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